What Bannerlord Does Good

[Arkyll]

There is alot of negativity regarding the game on this forum. Not to say it isnt warranted much of the time, but honestly im curious what players think the game actually does well at this point.

Value: After playing this game for a ridiculous amount of time, I think it is fair to say that like other games in the series, it is good value for money. The game was 32GBP for me at launch and I would say 400 hours in, I have got my moneys worth, and even when it is playing against me, I felt compelled to continue playing it regardless. So its clearly enticing enough to dump that much free time into it.

Many of the players who regularly complain about the game have also put hundreds of hours into the game.

Battles: The battles are fun. Though far from perfect, battles are never boring to me. The games strongest feature I think, and possibly the best in the series.

Visuals: Bannerlord is a decent looking game. It could have come out in 2012, but it is nice that there is finally a M&B game that isnt absolutely hideous.

There are other things I like somewhat but these are the main three for me.

 

[BigFat]

I like the clan system. It's entertaining to me to bring family members as captains or their own parties and it's always a bit of fun avenging their untimely deaths.

Death in battle is another thing I like (though I'd like it to get toned down a little). It's very cathartic to see that red skull on the feed when you ram your spear through a particularly annoying lord.

 

[Mad Vader]

Agreed, and let's list even more good stuff:
- Bannerlord doesn't mine for cryptos - you would expect something like this after all the strange performance problems, but no, Taleworlds really pulled through on this one and didn't add malware.
- The Sound of Doom is not in every patch! We know how hard it is to hold back the legions of Hell and Taleworlds are doing a superhuman job.
- Every time people get massively disappointed, they just postpone the final date. It's basically free labor for you fans!
- There are no memorable NPCs in the game. Why write complex stories and dialogs, when the player can have his own ideas about what these NPCs are really like. Characterization happens in the mind - of the player.
- Armor does very little and this makes the battles last for minutes. Can you imagine the old Warband players playing a single battle for an hour? What happens when they really need to pee or check social media? No such problems in Bannerlord.

 

[Apocal]

It puts the AI on a much closer playing field than Warband did. I can actually drain their garrisons by repeatedly killing their parties.

Sieging down a town works sometimes, instead of being literally impossible like in Warband.

Raiding actually has an effect on a faction's numbers, instead of being mostly RP with a side order of gluing you in place.

The leveling system is free of stupid as **** tax skills like prisoner and inventory management. There aren't even very many minimums anymore, so I'm free to do literally whatever the hell I want skillwise.

Perks are nice.

All the inventory space.

More of the mechanics are transparent. This is probably hit or miss for a lot of other players though.

Troop balance is better than Warband's.

Some other, more subjective stuff, like wives being actually useful in BL, instead of ornaments; the dynamic econ being more viable to play around with; the siege equipment.

 

[hruza]

It's massive improvement over Warband.
Apart of obvious things like visuals and scale:

-Much better AI. Still not as good as I would wish it to be, but much better then in Warband. Horse archers and skirmish cavalry actually work!

-Better animations. Especially horse riding animations/control are probably the best I saw in any game.

-Dynamic NPCs. People complain that they lack character. Yes, but so they did in Warband. And those were always the same in every game.

-Much more historical armors, cloths and weapons. I like historical accuracy in historical games and fact that weapons, dress and armors look more like actual things adds immersion to the game for me. Shows that devs really did their historical preparation for the game.

-Character creation/customization is one of the better ones I saw in games recently. Robust level of customization along with fairly user friendly interface. Still lacking that "save preset" button thou.

-Perks, nice addition, but feels bit underwhelming. Effects feel rather weak. Still, better then no perks I guess.

-No irritating "marriage scene". That thing in Warband was god dam awful and cut of from some cheap Bollywood South American soap opera/telenovel infinite series.

 

[five bucks]

Compared to the rest of the series:

* Visuals (graphics, animations, HUD design) are the best yet.

* Big battle sizes.

* Loading mods individually is really valuable and so are the beginning of the mod tools.

* A more in-depth backstory and main quest story than any M&B branded game/mod yet, only Viking Conquest comes close.

* The battering rams, trebuchets, catapults, firepots, stones, merlons, extra ladders, etc. added to sieges.

* Lords actually dying when you smash their face in and being replaced by heirs is something that bothered me with its absence in Warband and is great to have in Bannerlord.

* Many other nice minor quality-of-life changes, or tweaks to make Warband mechanics more realistic.

Of course, there is still a long way to go. Bannerlord has added some new content to the series, but also failed to return features from earlier games. It is still overall unfinished and broken, in its current state, compared to earlier games.

Compared to games in general outside the series - The M&B formula's blend of light real time strategy+first person slasher+light grand strategy+action RPG is almost entirely unique and is very satisfying when it works.

 

[Zerofive]

The replayability of the game is just great. Every campaign has many elements which are completly different than the ones before, like your playstyle/weapon loadout, army composition, allegiances / war progression. But even on much smaller scales you might have diffent outcomes each time, f.e. battles can be favored in one way or another by the terrain/map, not to mention just using diffent tactics.

Even now we have some mods wich enrich this diversity like custom troop-trees....so this plus will just get bigger in time

 

[Spinozart1]

Among my long list:

• Travel trough the world and enjoy the changing seasons and landscape.
• Each town look great and worth visiting them, face visuals are unique as well.
• Big scale battle, really enjoyable on foot and on backhorse.
• Whole economy system, your action may actually influence the local economy.
• Respect of the base concept of the franchise, while adding-improving mechanics.

And of course it will be even better with the incoming mods. Freelancer is already a clever expansion of the game.

 

[a_ver_est]

IMHO, just better graphics at the moment.

But I agree that there will be a long list of things better if they are able to finish most of the half cooked features that we have now like:

Battle system (both field and sieges)
Dead/birth mechanics
Clan system
Character development
More in depth economy
...

But some other will be worst if TW don't change his mind like:

Kingdom control
Lords relationships
Role playing
Empty scenes
...

The best we can do is wait to see the final state of the game when released before judgement, right now the only thing that can be absolutely criticized is the development speed.

 

[ImperialDane]

For all it's flaws there's really a lot of work going into this and it shows.

I mean the visuals themselves are quite great, even in large battles and it's really stable in general i find.

Additionally battles are overall quite improved over warband with a lot more tactics actually viable.. even if the AI is dumber than a sack of sand at times. Siege battles are also significantly improved. No more fighting over a single ladder. You've got actual siege warfare now! And when it occasionally all just works.. It's pretty damn amazing.

Another thing i like is the setting. This late antiquity-early medieval period with fictional versions of a lot of cultures and nations is great, never mind all of the minor clans you've got on the periphery, creating for a more vibrant world with a nice feel to it.

Also i am liking that the game has some depth that allows for some exploration of systems and skills as you figure out things and try out different combinations. Even if not all fully implemented or working entirely as intended.

Plus the game has a nice visceral feel to it.

So for all of it's flaws and issues. It's still by far the best Open World game i've played and it's pretty much rendered all the rest pointless to me. Been playing it almost every day since i bought it back in december and i honestly don't regret it in the slightest.

 

[LuciusDomitiusAurelianus]

The art direction is top notch: assets, textures, lighting (when it isnt hurt by bugs), and the musical scoring is awesome.

Clan and lineage mechanics, makes family and spouses much more meaningful. Having kids is a lot of fun. And *finally* being able to kill an enemy lord is fun.

The economy is real and makes you put thought in how to interact with it. While not as pronounced you can fight "small war" and devastate a kingdom.

Sieges! Aside from ladder AI lol, the engines and multiple lines of attack is awesome.

Troop diversity and equipment. Oh and all that sweet inventory space and blacksmithing.

Bigger battles, hated the tiny boring skirmishes in Warband.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Whenever I played warband I always thought "DAMN if only the AI couldn't dog pile on me when I take a fief I bet I could wipe out the map alone", because in bannerlord they can't do this (until you 'make kingdom') I know it's true, I can take the whole world!

Whenever I played warband I would often think, MAN, if I could just kill these stupid bots I bet I could easily take over the map! Now in bannerlord it's a reality that yes, it's very easy and fast game to just kill all the NPC lords.

Whenever I play warband I though MAN if only I could sneak into ALL the towns (you can get into praven and some castles shhhhh)somehow I bet I could solo the whole town! Now in bannerlord I can to this whenever I want because of the AI's questionable siege tactics when you retreat your party! Some maps also have secret entrances I don't think I've checked in prevend does though (in warband praven has a secret)

Also when II play warband I wish HA were good (like in 1257 ad mods) and in Bannerlord they are!

So, Bannerlord excells in bulling the AI lords as a solo clan and HA being pretty good!

 

[Adrivan]

Whenever I played warband I always thought "DAMN if only the AI couldn't dog pile on me when I take a fief I bet I could wipe out the map alone", because in bannerlord they can't do this (until you 'make kingdom') I know it's true, I can take the whole world!

Whenever I played warband I would often think, MAN, if I could just kill these stupid bots I bet I could easily take over the map! Now in bannerlord it's a reality that yes, it's very easy and fast game to just kill all the NPC lords.

Whenever I play warband I though MAN if only I could sneak into ALL the towns (you can get into praven and some castles shhhhh)somehow I bet I could solo the whole town! Now in bannerlord I can to this whenever I want because of the AI's questionable siege tactics when you retreat your party! Some maps also have secret entrances I don't think I've checked in prevend does though (in warband praven has a secret)

Also when II play warband I wish HA were good (like in 1257 ad mods) and in Bannerlord they are!

So, Bannerlord excells in bulling the AI lords as a solo clan and HA being pretty good!

I also find it pretty weird that you can start conquering the map without ever creating a kingdom.... it seems unbalanced tbh

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I also find it pretty weird that you can start conquering the map without ever creating a kingdom.... it seems unbalanced tbh

Having a kingdom or being a vassal is a complete cluster **** with no strategy or player agency. It's in the "what bannerlord does WRONG" category.

 

[Lornloth00]

The modding system is much better. There is no need to install an old version of python in order to make mods.
The plugin based modding system is much better which has lead to hundreds if not thousands of mods.
The modding system is based on #C which is easier for modders.
The character design is infinitely better. I personally love the way the characters look especially on high settings.
The character design for the bodies allows for a variety of body types unlike Warband.
The female characters actually look like human beings and have more potential to be attractive by comparison to Warband.
Town clothing is very nice instead of constantly wearing war gear.
Forming armies and joining lords that form armies rather than following marshals into disaster.
Built in troop trees unlike native Warband.
Meeting characters in menu based unlike vanilla Warband which requires meeting characters every time to talk to them.
The encyclopedia system.
Seemingly infinite save slots that allows the player to create many different play throughs and characters unlike Warband which only allowed 9 saves slots for some reason.
Better title screen music, Warbands title music gets grating on the ears.
The economy seems more real rather than a thing just for show with no real substance like in Warband.
The arena opponents actually fight each other and not just swarm the player.
A bigger and more interesting map of Calradia.
Clothing and armor that can change colors based on the faction.
The villages are built to scale like real life villages unlike Warband which its' villages were just a few hobbles.
Better cities.
Characters have many idle animations that make them seem more alive. Try people watching NPCs and you will notices many animations you didn't before.
Finding ransom brokers is better than Warband. Chasing down ransom brokers could be fun but its time consuming as hell.
The manual labor quest is probably the best quest Taleworlds has ever made, good job.
I love the companion system compare to Warband's it could use more fleshed out writing but every play-thru will be unique.
The birth and death system.
Balanced bandit hideouts.
And some how there is an MMORPG mod for Bannerlord that definitely is better than Warband.
Hilarious EA bugs like the thicc boi bug and bald cross dresser with two hand swords.

 

[Spinozart1]

Hilarious EA bugs like the thicc boi bug and bald cross dresser with two hand swords.

And the full armor high tier soldiers with a child body and head